Leck threw back his head and laughed. “I thought you must have, when we lost track of you. I very nearly decided to sit back and wait. I knew you’d surface somewhere, eventually. But when I made inquiries, I learned that you weren’t welcome at your own court, Lady Katsa. And it made me crazy, absolutely crazy, to sit around doing nothing while my dear child was – ” His eye rested again on Bitterblue and he rubbed his hand over his mouth. “While my girl was apart from me. I decided to take a chance. I ordered my people to continue the search, of course, across the other kingdoms; but I decided to try Lienid myself.”
Katsa shook her head, but the fog in her mind wouldn’t clear. “You needn’t have worried,” she said. “I’ve kept her safe.”
“Yes,” he said. “And now you’ve brought her to me, straight to my doorstep, to my castle here on Lienid’s western shore.”
“Your castle,” Katsa said dully. She had thought this was Po’s castle. Or had she thought it was her own castle? No, that was absurd; she was a lady of the Middluns, and she had no castle. She must have misunderstood something someone said, somewhere.
“Now it’s time for you to give my child back to me,” Leck said.
“Yes,” Katsa said, but it worried her to relinquish care of the girl, who had stopped struggling but was collapsed now against Katsa muttering nonsense to herself and whimpering. Repeating the words Leck said over and over, in whispered bewilderment, as if she were testing how they sounded in her own voice.
“Yes,” Katsa said again. “I will – but not until she’s feeling better.”
“No,” Leck said. “Bring her to me now. I know how to make her feel better.”
Katsa truly did not like this man. The way he ordered her around – and the way he looked at Bitterblue, with something in his gaze Katsa had seen before but couldn’t quite place. Bitterblue was Katsa’s responsibility. Katsa raised her chin. “No. She’ll stay with me until she’s feeling better.”
Leck laughed. He looked around the room. “The Lady Katsa is nothing if not contrary,” he said. “But I don’t suppose any of us should blame her for being protective. Well, no matter. I’ll enjoy my daughter’s company” – his eye flicked to the girl again – “later.”
“And now will you tell me of my son?” the woman beside Katsa asked. “Why isn’t he here? He isn’t injured, is he?”
“Yes,” Leck said. “Comfort an anxious mother, Lady Katsa. Tell us all about Prince Po. Is he nearby?”
Katsa turned to the woman, flustered, trying to work out too many puzzles at once. Certainly there were some things it was safe to say about Po; but weren’t some topics meant to be kept quiet? The categories were blurring. Perhaps it was best to say nothing at all. “I don’t wish to talk of Po,” she said.
“Don’t you?” Leck asked. “That’s unfortunate. For I do wish to talk of Po.”
He tapped the arm of his chair for a moment, thoughtfully.
“He’s a strong young man, our Po,” he continued. “Strong and brave. A credit to his family. But he’s not without his secrets, is he?”
Katsa felt, suddenly, her nerves jangling to the tips of her fingers.
Leck watched her. “Yes,” he said. “Po’s a bit of a problem, isn’t he?” He lowered his eyebrows and pursed his lips; and then he seemed to come to a decision. He looked around the room, at the various members of Po’s family, and beamed. He spoke pleasantly.
“I had thought to keep something to myself,” he said. “But it occurs to me now that Po is indeed very strong; and he may appear someday on our doorstep. And perhaps, in anticipation of that event, it would be best for me to tell you all something that may” – he smiled shortly – “have some bearing on how you receive him. For you see, my Lady Katsa,”
he said, his eye locking into hers, “I’ve been thinking quite a lot about our dear Po, and I’ve developed a theory. A theory that you’ll all find fascinating, if a bit upsetting. Yes,” he said, smiling into the puzzled faces that watched him.
“It’s always a bit upsetting to learn that one has been double-crossed, and by a member of the family. And you’re the very person to test my theory on, Lady Katsa, because I think you may be in possession of Prince Po’s truth.”
Po’s father and his brothers shifted in their chairs and furrowed their eyebrows; and Katsa’s mind was numb with panic and confusion.
“It’s a theory about Prince Po’s Grace,” Leck said.
Katsa heard a small breath beside her, from the woman who was Po’s mother. The woman took one step toward Leck, and put her hand to her throat. “Wait,” she said. “I don’t know – ” She stopped. She turned her eyes to Katsa, puzzled, afraid. And Katsa was on fire with bewilderment and with desperate alarm. She felt – she understood – she could almost just barely remember –
“I believe your Po has been hiding a secret from you,” Leck said. “Tell me if I’m right, Lady Katsa, that Prince Po is actually – ”
It was then, at last, that a bolt of certainty struck Katsa. In that moment she moved. She dropped the child, snatched the dagger from her belt, and threw. Not because she remembered Leck must die. Not because she remembered the truth of Po’s Grace. But because she remembered that Po did have a secret, a terrible secret, the revelation of which would hurt him in some horrible way she felt deeply but couldn’t remember – and here this man sat, the secret on the tip of his tongue. And she must stop him, somehow stop him; she must silence this man, before the ruinous words were said.
In the end, Leck should have stuck to his lies. For it was the truth he almost told that killed him.
———
The dagger flew straight and true. It embedded itself in Leck’s open mouth and nailed him to the back of his chair.
He sat there, arms and legs sagging, his single eye wide and lifeless. Blood spilling around the hilt of the blade and down the front of his robes. And now women were screaming, and men were shouting in outrage, running toward her with swords drawn, and Katsa knew instantly she must be careful in this fight. She must not hurt Po’s brothers and his father. And suddenly they stopped, because with one long look at Leck, Bitterblue staggered to her feet.
She placed herself before Katsa, pulled her own knife from its sheath, and held it shakily against them.
“You will not hurt her,” Bitterblue said. “She did right.”
“Child,” King Ror said. “Move aside, for we don’t wish to hurt you. You aren’t well. Princess Bitterblue, you’re protecting the murderer of your own father.”
“I’m perfectly well now that he’s dead,” Bitterblue said, her voice growing stronger and her hand steadying. “And I’m not a princess. I’m the Queen of Monsea. Katsa’s punishment is my responsibility, and I say she did right, and you will not hurt her.”
She did seem well-competent with the knife in her hand, composed, and very determined. Po’s brothers and his father stood in a semicircle, swords raised. Rings on their fingers and hoops in their ears. Like seven variations on Po, Katsa thought vaguely – but with no lights in their eyes. She rubbed her own eyes. She was tired, she couldn’t quite think. Several women in the background were crying.
“She murdered your father,” King Ror said again now, but wealdy. He raised his hand to his forehead. He peered at Bitterblue, puzzled.
“My father was evil,” Bitterblue said. “My father had the Grace of deceiving people with his words. He’s been deceiving you – about my mother’s death, my illness, his intentions toward me. Katsa has been protecting me from him.
Today she saved me altogether.”
All their hands were to their heads. All their eyebrows were drawn, all their faces masks of bewilderment.
“Did he say – did Leck say that he owned this castle? Did he – ” Ror’s voice trailed away. His eyes stared into the rings on his hands.